Moyo Hill Camp – Day 23 – 2/27/11
This entry is day 23 thanks to Alice who pointed out that I have two entries under day 19! Oops. So today was our third non-program day. Many people opted or asked to go to church but I remained in camp. I had stayed up rather late the night before talking to people at home and star gazing. It was amazing…the stars were so clear that they were literally twinkling; I didn’t know they could actually do that. Plus there were so many shooting stars. I read in one of my favorite books that the Bushmen or Hadzabe believe that every time you see a shooting star is signifies a person’s soul moving from this world into the world of the fallen. It made watching these stars so sad even though they are so beautiful. Anyways non-program day. I stayed at camp in the morning and did my laundry. This was not terribly exciting except that I almost got my white sock completely white again…this red dirt that I have come to enjoy so much is determined to come to the states with me. After completing laundry and hanging it up to dry on the lines, I took my book (The Eye of the Elephant by Mark and Delia Owens…very good) under one of the trees and read for a bit. At one point I fell asleep for about half an hour getting my legs rather sun burned since the sun had moved in this amount of time.
In the afternoon everyone got in the cruisers and we went to an art gallery. The owner is American and decided to open this gallery along the tourist track to showcase the art of African artist. It is very Americanized with food that is familiar (I have never been so happy to eat a Caesar salad in my life), classic rock on the stereo, and interesting modern art created in Dar es Salaam. She also had three labs which we all pet and cuddled the entire time we were there. It is a very relaxing place and I found a lovely bush with some shade under it to read my book. Tearing ourselves away we quickly went into Karatu where I bought more fabric before heading back to camp.
Moyo Hill Camp – Day 24 – 2/28/11
We had traveling lecture all morning starting in Mtu wa Mbu amidst a large unit of rice and maize farms. Here an older farmer spoke to us about the limited water resources and the crops produced here. Much of the conversation centered on the irrigation schedule and how the government funded the building of a canal. One of the final point which was particularly interesting was when we asked whether the farmers supported watershed conservation and compensation to the upstream communities for dominating the water supply. He answered that they did not and why should they when their water come from the Nile River. This of course is not possible since the Nile flows in the opposite direction and their water does in fact come from the hills surrounding Mto wa Mbu. On second stop of traveling lecture was at the very edge of Lake Manyara NP. We were sitting in the protected wildlife corridorlooking many miles down to Lake Manyara across a barren, gray savannah stretching before us. Two herds of Maasai cattle were visible grazing the already overgrazed land and midway through our lecture another herd walked nearly on top of us also to graze also. After lecture we walked out a bit on this plain. The overgrazing was very apparent and one of my classmates compared walking here to walking on the salt flats in the US.
We had one class in the afternoon, WE. Lecture was about 15 minutes long and then we were paired up and assigned an article which we will present tomorrow in class. The rest of the afternoon I finished my book, proof read my EP paper, and picked up one of my skirts from the tailor. Today is the birthday of a fellow student (he is from New Orleans) so dinner was all southern comfort food. Watching our Tanzanian staff try and eat fried chicken was hilarious. We also had amazing cake for dessert. Another day of class tomorrow…..
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